Friday, September 20, 2013

The Last Burial

Exploring what could be found about the Kelly family plot in
Fort Wayne, as we’ve seen, included some surprises—such as the baby Willie I’ve
yet to otherwise document, and the mystery burial of Timothy’s second wife Mary
elsewhere. All told, the family plot
held nine burials, mostly of family who had died between 1874 and 1925.

With the burial of the eighth family member in 1925, it
would be easy to presume that the lot was completely filled. Perhaps, on
account of one burial being that of an infant, the Catholic Cemetery
saw fit to include yet another family member in 1940: Andrew J. Kelly, son of
Timothy and Ellen.

Shortly after the 1900 census was recorded, though, things
began to change for Andrew. By July 23, 1902, the thirty four year old saloon
keeper had married Anna C. Russell, a woman seventeen years his junior.

Eight years into the marriage, by the time of the 1910 census, the couple was living in the very house where Andrew had grown up on Brandriff Street in
Fort Wayne. Andrew
was listed as proprietor of the saloon where he had worked for the last ten years. At home, well, it was hard to tell.
There’s not much that can be extrapolated from the records, other than the fact
that Anna was listed as a woman without any children.

About the only visible difference in the 1920 census was the
fact that the census taker chose to spell their name as Kelley. Still on Brandriff Street, Andrew
now worked as a janitor at a manufacturing business.

It is hard to tell, in gleaning notes from historic
newspaper collections, whether any given reports might be of the right Andrew
Kelly. Perhaps it was this Andrew of
whom a “Police Court” column on page 25 of the June 19, 1915, Fort Wayne News referred:

Andrew Kelly was one
of the two drunks who drew fines this morning, and he begged hard to get off so
that he could drive a four-horse float in the parade this afternoon. He is a
teamster for the Porter Construction company and started for a drive with a
team belonging to the company Sunday afternoon, but got as far as Calhoun and
Grand streets, when he fell asleep in the rig as a result of too much cider.

Andrew Kelly took his
employer’s pony team out to give himself and a companion a Sunday joy ride.
They got a gallon of Hoffman’s well-known cider and when the police caught up
with Kelly he was fast asleep in his buggy at Calhoun and Grand streets. He
drew $1 and costs.

There were other mentions of Andrew Kelly’s name in various
editions of Fort Wayne
newspapers, mostly concerning his saloon license and business difficulties.
These probably provide enough indication for reasons why he ended up selling
his business and finding a job as a janitor. Perhaps that was his last-ditch
effort to satisfy a wife who was threatening to divorce him for “failure to
provide properly.”

Though shortly after that point, the historic newspaper
collections I subscribe to go dark for editions of the Fort Wayne news, I tend to think Andrew’s
life may have reverted to that quiet desperation felt by those who are left
alone. I can only presume—well, it’s a good guess, given the Brandriff Street address—that it is our
Andrew who showed up, apparently at his own old address, listed as a "lodger" in the 1930 census.

By the time of the 1940 census, at Saint Joseph's Home for the Aged, Andrew’s life was finished winding
down. He bid his final farewells and called it quits on December 2, 1940. The Catholic Cemetery records gave his age as seventy
three years, one month and one day. It seems almost anticlimactic, in the face
of this sad recounting, to check that tally in a birth date calculator to see if
it matches the November 1867 date given in the 1900 census as his birth, but I
did. For what it’s worth, the results confirm his birth as November 1, 1867.

His vital statistics seemed to reduce him down to numbers on
documents, duly recorded business licenses and court fines, and yet another file—his divorce settlement—telling him he was a failure yet again. What of the
litany of life-shaping events that brought Andrew Kelly to that end? Those are
articles no newspaper is likely to print. There is probably no source left now
to tell that sort of story.

After that, all we are left with is a forlorn notation the Catholic Cemetery insisted on registering in his burial record: “divorced.”

The signs of painful elements in his life remind me of other stories in this extended family's history. It's hard to understand what went into his taking the life path that he did. It may not be a choice at all, but a convergence of elements. Hard to say, when I can only find the slightest tip of this life's iceberg.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.